7 Business Website Trends for 2018

Business websites need to evolve from time to time to cope with the latest visual and usability trends, users’ changing habits and influences by companies such as Google and Facebook that dominate the web.

The idea behind this post is to look at the web design trends that will become popular in 2018. It will also show you the business advantages in applying these trends to your existing or future business websites.

Mobile First Always

All businesses need to know this growing trend: Your future customers and existing clients predominantly use their phones over their desktops and laptops. They watch videos on the move, they shop in their lunch breaks, and they interact with social media whenever and wherever they can.

You must not only have a traditional presence online to facilitate your customers’ needs, but you also need a website with full functionality that works perfectly on mobile device screens.

So, even more so in the coming year, do make sure that your website works great on mobile, not just visually, but also functionally.

Bold Colours Catch the Eye

Increasingly, businesses are being bolder with colour. Why? Well, there are several reasons. Consider:

By using bold contrasting colours you can draw the eye to certain parts of a screen. Think special offers

Bold colours appeal to younger potential customer and clients that may not have had contact with your brand

Bold colours speak professionalism and as such build trust with clients and customers

If your web designer says let’s use big and bold colours for your new design, don’t be afraid; say “when you can start?”. Bright colours and great use of it can both appeal to and provide better navigation for your customers and clients.

Use Author Pictures

It is no surprise that photos should be and still is a strong design element in 2018. A picture tells a thousand words and customers want to see what they are buying. A trend to adopt for maximum conversions is to use author pictures rather than stock photos where you can. Yes, it’s going to feel like an additional expense, but trust us, the result will speak for itself.

Authenticity is both desired and sought after by your customers and clients. Author photos, i.e. ones you have taken yourself (or professionally), create that feeling of authenticity and build trust with clients and customers.

Great Upselling Options come with Sticky Bars

The bottom sticky bar element is increasingly used to provide a better experience for your customer and clients on bigger screens. They allow for moving elements such as ads, popups, and chat boxes, out of the way of the main content providing a better user experience. Yet they remain visible to your customers and clients.

This means that with a little creative flair you can use the sticky bars to showcase special offers and promotions, feature a call to action, and provide navigational aids. Good sticky bar use will provide you with more opportunities to upsell.

Get Ready for Speech Driven Web

The age of using voice commands to search the web is not far away. The internet of things is evolving all the time. Five years ago, nobody had heard of Alexa, Google’s Mobile Assistant, Siri, Bixby etc… Now it is hard to find someone who doesn’t know or even own at least one. Having an AI assistant is becoming commonplace.

As such, making sure that your SEO is now also keeping that into consideration may save a world of headaches in the future. Your customers and clients are using their voices now to search Google on their phones; it makes sound business sense to keep that in mind for your business website.

Enhancing Customer/Client Engagement with Scrolling Animations

Scrolling animations provide a creative way of enhancing engagement. The idea is that as a potential customer and client scrolls, an animation plays which captures attention. The speed of the animation is dictated by how fast the user scrolls.

The overall business idea is that as your user watches the animation USPs are shown. This can be a considerable conversion aid as the more selling points you show the more chances of a successful engagement. Just be very careful with the downside of this, which if over-used, the website will end up looking like a mess or slow down the website load-time.

Whitespace and Minimalism

Designers and business owners have often clashed over minimalism. Business owners have leaned towards a more packed web page, while designers have leaned towards a less is more approach. Now, with a little creativity, it is possible to combine the best of both worlds for maximum engagement.

Final Thoughts

Operators in competitive business spaces will see better conversions and better engagement with customers and clients if they implement as many of these design trends as possible. It may seem daunting but a good web designer can explain these concepts and help to bring them to life to make the best business impact possible.

Talk to us today and we can help you restructure your website to embrace the mobile revolution and to maximise conversions.

Author: Storm Design

I am the founder of Storm Design Malta – a successful web development company, primarily serving small to medium sized businesses. Over the past decade, we have been working with several local and foreign SMB's to successfully launch, maintain and promote their business online. With a strong design, technical and marketing background, we are able to take up and handle web projects from the initial planning stages until completion up to the client's satisfaction. With our marketing skills, we are also able to handle SEO, Social Media and Online Marketing Campaigns and Online PR to enhance the success of your existing website.